Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

The short article written by the Guatemalan writer extols the artwork of Emilio Amero, who had lived in the United States in the 1920s, enjoying a certain success in the U.S. market. The writer praises the characteristics of the artist’s work— [...]

Arqueles Vela writes a review of the most recent work by Antonio Ruiz, nicknamed “El Corcito” whom he considers a “contemporary Mexican painter.” He emphasizes the essential traits of his paintings and at the same time reveals a criticism of [...]

Agustín Yáñez applauds the elements embedded in Carlos Mérida’s work. He mentions his search for Americanism in the color, which he considers “a terribly dangerous route . . . to his exposure to failure . . .”. However, in Yáñez’s [...]

This article reproduces some of Diego Rivera’s observations regarding his work, based on a number of sketches done in Paris and Tehuantepec “in which the penetrating sensibility of the artist may be discerned.” These sketches would later be [...]

This “exclusive” interview with Mexican illustrator and painter Miguel Covarrubias took place on the occasion of a trip to Mexico City. During this conversation Covarrubias talked at length about a series of “impossible interviews” which had [...]

This article discusses a plan by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City to purchase works by José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, Rufino Tamayo, Jesús Guerrero Galván, and Juan Soriano. The chosen artists’ formal and artistic qualities are [...]

This article reviews the activities of Roberto Cueva del Río, a painter from Puebla, at the Mexican Embassy in Washington where he worked under orders from the Department of Foreign Affairs. Cueva del Río painted the walls of that hall with popular [...]

This document outlines the opinions of Federico García, a Spanish artist who wrote an article for the Madrid daily ABC. Both a correspondent and columnist for the magazine, he states his disapproval for the manner in which Diego Rivera portrayed the [...]

Roberto de la Selva seeks to communicate to his readers the reach and present reality of Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, establishing a comparative “technical and ideological” vision of the work of both artists. The author presents his [...]

This article primarily focuses on the activities of the Centro Escolar Revolución [Revolutionary Educational Center], which was emblematically inaugurated on November 20, 1934, by President Abelardo L. Rodríguez. The article highlights the [...]

This short document tells us about the mural at the Confederación Campesina [Mexican Peasants Confederation] “Emiliano Zapata” in the city of Puebla. The fine arts department of the SEP [Ministry of Public Education] commissioned the work from [...]

This article describes the program by the government of Jalisco to decorate, with mural paintings, the Museo y Biblioteca del Estado [State Museum and Library]. The author mentions the governor [Sebastián] Allende, who plans to invite one of the [...]

This article describes in detail the creation of the National Stadium—inaugurated a month earlier—completed by the initiative of the Minister of Public Education José Vasconcelos (1921-1924). The text reproduces his statements as he mentions the [...]

In this speech delivered at the Universidad Obrera [Workers’ College] and transcribed in this article, the artist Jesús Guerrero Galván discusses the perspective and mission of the artist: “ . . . when confronted with social problems . . . it [...]

The author explains the plan for the escuelas funcionalistas [functionalistic schools], a joint initiative between Narciso Bassols, Minister of Public Education (1931-1934), and Juan O’Gorman, at the time Chief of Constructions in the same official [...]

This article discusses the preparations for the first exhibition of “women’s” posters—an unprecedented event. The women artists involved were María Izquierdo, Dolores Álvarez Bravo, Cordelia Urueta, and the Peruvian Julia Codesido. The [...]

In this article, Cardoza y Aragón discusses Federico Cantú’s painting, referring particularly to its “fuerza lírica” [lyrical power.] According to the critic, Cantú was a good representative of a new generation of modern Mexican artists. [...]

The text deals with the creation of the Galería Universitaria, whose objectives were “to stimulate the creation of art, to encourage the development of the visual arts, and to make national and foreign art of the highest quality widely known [...]

This article reports on an initiative to create a politically committed group of intellectuals and artists. The example taken by Muñoz Cota is the Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios (LEAR) [League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists [...]

The article provides a detailed description of an encounter with the artist known as “El Chango” [The Monkey] Cabral in his studio during the creation of a removable mural. The reporter describes in detail the composition and animal-like [...]

The author summarizes a lecture given by poet José Gorostiza in which he talks about the “little teachers” of the new school of Mexican painting, as well as the “affinities that are enough, in my opinion, to characterize the work in its [...]

Cardoza y Aragón writes about a supposed commission for a mural painting dedicated to José Clemente Orozco, meant for the recently considered monument to the revolution “little known to the majority of the inhabitants.” He describes the work, [...]

This text reviews the murals painted by Federico Cantú and Roberto Montenegro at the Papillon Bar on the Antiguo Callejón de la Condesa, beside the House of Tiles in Mexico City’s historic district (currently Madero Street.) The businessman [...]

In this article Jorge Cuesta writes about the difficulty in determining, at first sight, the artistic and educational value of the works in the exhibition of revolutionary posters organized by the Departmento de Bellas Artes de la SEP [Ministry of [...]

José Guadalupe Zuno (Z) devotes this entire article to mural paintings in Jalisco, having commissioned some of them himself while he was governor. Zuno makes particular reference to the murals in the Salón de la Universidad that were painted by [...]

The article describes the artistic production achieved in these institutions, the evening schools, which received great support during the final years of the Maximato (1928-1934) and the Lázaro Cárdenas administration (1934-1940). It mainly [...]

The anonymous author of this article discusses the work of the sculptor Carlos Bracho, who was living in Paris. He finds Bracho’s works to be “reminiscent of native works of the New World.” His sculptures—carved in wood, stone, or bronze— [...]

Jesús Guerrero Galván makes some observations about the production by Leopoldo Méndez, within the context of several group exhibitions that were held in 1926. He qualifies the social function of the œuvre by his colleague and considers his [...]

This article discusses the series called Los teules (la conquista de México) [The White Gods (The Conquest of Mexico)] that was created by José Clemente Orozco for his last exhibition at the Colegio Nacional. On the theme of the conquest, Justino [...]

In this article, which was also published in El Ilustrado (August 1930), Diego Rivera predicted “an excellent future” for Isabel Villaseñor, the painter from Guadalajara. The article was devoted to new young artists, and Rivera [...]

This document offers a description of the murals that Marion Greenwood, an American painter and Brooklyn native, created for the Mercado Abelardo L. Rodríguez. Urban and rural labor, industrial development, the class struggle, and the struggle [...]

In his article on the young painter Jesús Guerrero Galván, whose 1939 work amounted to a reinterpretation of European classicism, critic Luis Cardoza y Aragón placed more weight and validity on the formal and visual components of the work of the [...]

In the course of an interview, Rufino Tamayo talks about the polemic that arose regarding his mural at the Conservatorio Nacional with the topics of song and music. Tamayo took advantage of this forum to disqualify the students of the “little [...]

This article is about a series of murals produced in Guadalajara in the annex to the ancient Templo de Santo Tomás, which later became a university building. The participants in the workshop were the painters from Jalisco: Jesús Guerrero Galván, [...]

Luis Islas y García discusses the young painter Roberto Reyes Pérez, whose constructive, sober values he saw as a far cry from the “widespread artistic decadence” of the time. Islas y García considers Reyes Pérez’s painting to be strong, [...]

This article reports on painter Rosendo Salazar’s show at the Galería de Arte Moderno, under the authority of the Dirección General de Acción Educativa del Departmento del Distrito Federal (DDF) [Directorate for Educational Action at the Mexico [...]

The writer Xavier Villaurrutia comments on the town of Taxco (in the state of Guerrero) and its natural attraction. For him Taxco is like a flash of lightning that has now illuminated him, and he calls it a revelation. Taxco is synonymous with [...]

This article describes a great portion of the murals painted by the North American painter Grace Greenwood in Mexico, including her frescoes in the Aberlardo L. Rodríguez market and the Museo Michoacano, commissioned by the Universidad de San Nicol [...]

Luis Lara Pardo, who was close to Ángel Zárraga, comments about a fresco called Playa [Beach] that Zárraga created at the beginning of the 1930s in Paris, Said fresco was on loan for the International Fine Arts Exhibition in Baltimore. The author [...]

In this article, Justino Fernández describes the commission and the composition of Jesús Guerrero Galván’s mural in Albuquerque, located at the College of Fine Arts at the University of New Mexico. Fernández reports that he was the one who [...]

Jorge Piñó Sandoval’s article is based on a survey of contemporary artists regarding the situation of Mexican national art. The questions were directed toward the role and importance of the popular arts, particularly folklore, and the development [...]

This article outlines writer Jorge Cuesta’s position on the establishment of new educational, cultural and artistic principles, allowing us to glimpse his critique of José Vasconcelos and his romantic ideas about a university for the people; the [...]